Antibiotic and mammal IgG based lateral flow assay for simple and sensitive detection of Staphylococcus aureus

•VAN and pig IgG were used to build a new sandwich LFA format for S. aureus detection.•No demands of screening process for immunoreagents used in this LFA.•Gold enhancement strategy dedicated to the improvement of sensitivity in this LFA. Lateral flow assay (LFA), performed with simple devices and short detection time, is popular in field applications. Herein, a novel sandwich type-based LFA was constructed for high sensitivity and selectivity detection of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Vancomycin-immobilized gold nanoparticles (VAN-Au NPs) were utilized as the first identifier to capture S. aureus and the specificity was guaranteed by the second recognition agent of pig immunoglobulin G (IgG). In addition, gold growth was adopted for signal amplification to further improve the detection sensitivity. S. aureus could be directly assayed by this LFA within the concentration range of 1.0 × 103–1.0 × 108 cfu mL−1 with a detection limit of 1.0 × 103 cfu mL−1. Furthermore, the novel sandwich LFA realized S. aureus detection in food samples with admissible recoveries and established a rapid, simple, cost-effective and sensitive platform, could meet the demand for on-site testing of S. aureus.